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Pacific Union Crisis: What is at StakeLarry Kirkpatrick If at first you don't succeed, try and try again. The church wouldn't do it at Indianapolis in 1990, and they refused to do it at Utrecht in 1995, and they struck out most of the sneaky gender-neutral language hidden in the Divorce and Remarriage item at Toronto in 2000. Relentlessly, Conferences and Unions in North American Division have pressed forward their gender agenda. Efforts have been made to obliterate all Bible-based recognition of role-distinctions between male and female. In recent time they settled (temporarily) for a distinction without a difference. The idea of the commissioned minister being equal to an ordained one has been persistently pushed. One Conference last year even voted a peculiar ordained-commissioned credential that both the North American Division and the World Church have refused to recognize in the same sense as that Conference recognizes it. This issue won't go away, and is still being pressed forward with a zeal that would be better spent on a better cause. "Why do you persist in resisting this advance?" it might be asked. And my answer is that this is not an advance. I became a Seventh-day Adventist precisely because I was convicted that God's people should guide their lives by God's instructions. That's what we are, that's what we do. That's why we keep Sabbath rather than Sunday, baptize by immersion rather than sprinkling, and generally do almost everything else differently than those living by tradition-based Christian philosophies. We are a revelation-based, revelation-authority defined movement. Ours is not to do random mental freelancing, but to trust and obey. If I had chosen a different plan for my life, I would have attached myself to some other non-biblically-bound faith. This is very simple. Whatever the Scriptures teach, that is what we should do. Whatever they do not teach, whether we can explain why or not, we are not to do. The Bible does teach that men and women are equal, but not that they have the same roles. Roles are gender-differentiated. Men do not bare children, therefore they are not mothers. A man's relationship to his children is that of father, not mother. The Bible teaches from front to back that the elders were always male. The underlying Greek word of the New Testament for the elder is aner, meaning specifically male, rather than anthropos, the very commonly used term for people in general and of both genders. Paul, under God's inspiration plainly indicated that gender role differentiation was built-into the creation order, preceding the fall. And if all that were not convincing enough, we have the very plain requirements for elders, including the command that they be "the husband of one wife." Added to this we have Ellen G. White's very plain words and cautions fully sustaining the aforementioned teachings of Scripture. We are not left in silence or ambiguity by the inspired writings; we are rather plainly informed. If we really are together on this--if as a worldwide church we recognize together the authority of the Bible and the Spirit of Prophecy writings, then our options are closed on this matter. No matter how backward it may be thought this leaves us, there is no room for it in the movement. If you would live by a different value system, fine; then do so. But don't do it here. This is the pillar and ground of the truth, not the plastic traffic-cone of political correctness! Our leadership, appointed to lead mind you, in North America and the General Conference must recognize what they stand to gain by action, or lose by inaction. Among that which they stand to gain by acting are the following very tangible benefits: In contrast to these very desirable benefits accruing to the church, there are several undesirable and destructive outcomes accruing to the leadership of the world church should they choose not to act. Leaders of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, gird up your loins and be strong. We will support you. My fellow church members, do call in to your leaders Monday morning and express yourself. Tell them that you too will support them as they lead. At a very fundamental level, the action of the Pacific Union poses a direct attack against the authority of the world church. This is an hour for action. Other items on this topic: GreatControversy.org
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